- 52 minutes 53 seconds275: Summer Staff Picks: The Hillbilly Thomists
As we practice the good life with a bit of rest we asked four of our team members to choose one of their favorite episodes and explain why. Lee’s summer staff pick—The Hillbilly Thomistis: Bourbon, Bluegrass, and The Bible.
There aren’t many Billboard-charting bluegrass bands made up entirely of Catholic Dominican Friars, who play their shows clad in white tunics and rosaries. In fact, there is precisely one such band: the Hillbilly Thomists.
“A Thomist is someone who follows the thought and theological teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas,” they explain. “We combine it with a little bit of humor about our human condition.” In this episode, they talk about their theology and vocation, as well as how they manage life on the road as priests who have taken a vow of poverty. Plus, they give live performances of some of their finest songs.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with the Hillbilly Thomists
Thank you to our sponsors:
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Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
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17 August 2026, 10:00 am - 1 hour 7 minutes274: Unabridged Interview: Danielle Chapman
This is our unabridged interview with Danielle Chapman.
There is a fear that keeps most of us from looking too hard at where we come from: that we will turn over the wrong rock and find something we cannot carry. In the South, a holler is the tangled place on the riverbank you are told not to go. It is also a primal yell, and, as it happens, the sound Marines make.
Danielle Chapman is a poet, a lecturer at Yale, and the author of the memoir Holler: A Poet Among Patriots. She was raised largely by her grandfather, a four-star general and former Commandant of the Marine Corps, after her father drowned off the coast of Okinawa when she was three. She spent twelve years turning what began as a political critique of her past into something considerably more uncomfortable—a true telling that treats all involved as complex human beings.
Key Ideas
A Single Story Is Too Reductive The moment you decide someone's worst act is the whole truth about them, you've stopped being able to see anything else that's true.
Be Curious Before You Judge Asking one more question is harder and more honest than settling for a verdict.
Understanding Isn't the Same as Excusing Making sense of why someone did wrong doesn't require letting them off the hook for it.
Facts Complicate Ideology The more you actually learn about a person or a history, the harder it gets to hold a tidy, one-sided verdict on either.
Silence Is Inherited Too What a family doesn't say about its grief and its guilt gets passed down as surely as what it does say.
Darkness Doesn't Get the Last Word Grace and atrocity can occupy the same family history without one canceling out the other.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Danielle Chapman
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
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14 August 2026, 10:00 am - 44 minutes 7 secondsThe Subtext: Free Speech with Jacob Mchangama Part 2
Can I just say something? No, really! What are the boundaries of free speech these days? The conversation continues between Lee, Savannah, and Jacob Mchangama, Founder and Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech. Whether you're a free speech absolutist, a skeptic, or somewhere in between, this episode will challenge your assumptions about the topic. Stay tuned for Lee and Savannah's debrief at the end of the episode!
And remember, if you want to keep engaging with the conversation in person, you're invited to The Future of Free Speech - Global Free Speech Summit, Oct. 2-3, 2026.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
The Future of Free Speech - Global Free Speech Summit Oct. 2-3, 2026
Follow Jacob! Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/jmchangama) | X (https://x.com/JMchangama) | Instagram (https://instagram.com/JMchangama) Follow The Future of Free Speech! Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/futurefreespeech) | X (https://twitter.com/SpeechFuture) | Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/futurefreespeech/)
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12 August 2026, 9:00 am - 50 minutes 35 seconds274: Danielle Chapman: How Do You Inherit a Legacy You Can't Defend?
There is a fear that keeps most of us from looking too hard at where we come from: that we will turn over the wrong rock and find something we cannot carry. In the South, a holler is the tangled place on the riverbank you are told not to go. It is also a primal yell, and, as it happens, the sound Marines make.
Danielle Chapman is a poet, a lecturer at Yale, and the author of the memoir Holler: A Poet Among Patriots. She was raised largely by her grandfather, a four-star general and former Commandant of the Marine Corps, after her father drowned off the coast of Okinawa when she was three. She spent twelve years turning what began as a political critique of her past into something considerably more uncomfortable—a true telling that treats all involved as complex human beings.
Key Ideas
A Single Story Is Too Reductive The moment you decide someone's worst act is the whole truth about them, you've stopped being able to see anything else that's true.
Be Curious Before You Judge Asking one more question is harder and more honest than settling for a verdict.
Understanding Isn't the Same as Excusing Making sense of why someone did wrong doesn't require letting them off the hook for it.
Facts Complicate Ideology The more you actually learn about a person or a history, the harder it gets to hold a tidy, one-sided verdict on either.
Silence Is Inherited Too What a family doesn't say about its grief and its guilt gets passed down as surely as what it does say.
Darkness Doesn't Get the Last Word Grace and atrocity can occupy the same family history without one canceling out the other.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Danielle Chapman
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
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10 August 2026, 10:00 am - 1 hour 8 minutes273: Unabridged Interview: Annie Jacobsen
This is our unabridged interview with Annie Jacobsen.
Wouldn't you rather not know how the world ends?
Nine nations hold nuclear weapons, and every one of them is watched, counted, and deterred. A biological weapon needs no nation, no missile, and no submarine. The delivery system is a pair of lungs, and the barrier to entry is a working knowledge of biology and a computer. That asymmetry is why the journalist who wrote the definitive account of how the world ends in seventy-two minutes has spent the last two years on something that frightens her more.
Annie Jacobsen is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author who has spent more than fifteen years reporting on classified military and intelligence programs, reconstructing worst-case scenarios from the testimony of the people who built them. Her new book, Biological War: A Scenario, follows Nuclear War: A Scenario. She calls us to courage by reminding us that you cannot fix what you cannot face.
Key Ideas
Six Minutes to Decide What the nuclear chain of command actually looks like once a missile is airborne, and why the clock is the least of the problems.
The Delivery System Is a Pair of Lungs Why a biological weapon needs no missile, no submarine, and almost no barrier to entry, and why that changes everything about who has to worry.
What the Pandemic Actually Cost Us Jacobsen's argument that the most lasting damage of COVID was never counted in cases, and that we are still paying it.
The Pope's Quiet Backchannel A story she learned at the Vatican about how the world once stepped back from the brink, and why almost no one was allowed to know.
Old Men in Their Nineties What decades of interviewing soldiers near the end of their lives taught her about how a human being changes.
Solution, Solution, Solution Her answer to the reader who finishes the book, decides the worst case is inevitable, and gives up.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Annie Jacobsen
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
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7 August 2026, 10:00 am - 6 minutes 39 secondsNSE+ Books You Should Know: The Honesty Crisis by Christian B. Miller
Most people who share misinformation already suspect it is false.
This is a short preview of Lee's conversation with philosopher Christian B. Miller, from Books You Should Know, our quarterly series on NSE+. His new book, The Honesty Crisis, skips the easy target of lying public figures to ask a harder question: what kind of people do we become when deception gets cheap, convenient, and almost impossible to catch?
The full conversation is available now on NSE+, along with ad-free episodes, bonus content, and exclusive series.
Giveaway! Every NSE+ member is entered to win one of five copies of Christian's book, plus one of five signed copies of Lee's book Scandalous Witness. Every member is eligible, whether you joined three years ago or you join tonight. Entries close August 19th.
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5 August 2026, 10:00 am - 47 minutes 49 secondsThe Subtext: Free Speech with Jacob Mchangama Part 1
Nikki Minaj thanked Elon Musk for saving free speech, so naturally, Lee and Savannah had to phone a friend to learn more about what is going on. Jacob Mchangama, Founder and Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech sat down with The Subtext to discuss everything from social media and censorship to hate speech, political polarization, and the First Amendment. They examine the real costs of protecting speech we disagree with and why history suggests those costs may still be worth paying.
Want to keep learning more? Well, you're in luck because Jacob's organization is hosting a summit in Nashville, TN this fall: The Future of Free Speech - Global Free Speech Summit Oct. 2-3, 2026.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Letters from a Stoic by Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Europe Since Napoleon by David Thomson
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
The Future of Free Speech - Global Free Speech Summit Oct. 2-3, 2026
Follow Jacob! Facebook | X | Instagram
Follow The Future of Free Speech! Facebook | X | Instagram
Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter
Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack
Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com
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5 August 2026, 9:00 am - 51 minutes 8 seconds273: Annie Jacobsen: Why Biological War Scares Her More Than Nuclear
Wouldn't you rather not know how the world ends?
Nine nations hold nuclear weapons, and every one of them is watched, counted, and deterred. A biological weapon needs no nation, no missile, and no submarine. The delivery system is a pair of lungs, and the barrier to entry is a working knowledge of biology and a computer. That asymmetry is why the journalist who wrote the definitive account of how the world ends in seventy-two minutes has spent the last two years on something that frightens her more.
Annie Jacobsen is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author who has spent more than fifteen years reporting on classified military and intelligence programs, reconstructing worst-case scenarios from the testimony of the people who built them. Her new book, Biological War: A Scenario, follows Nuclear War: A Scenario. She calls us to courage by reminding us that you cannot fix what you cannot face.
Key Ideas
Six Minutes to Decide What the nuclear chain of command actually looks like once a missile is airborne, and why the clock is the least of the problems.
The Delivery System Is a Pair of Lungs Why a biological weapon needs no missile, no submarine, and almost no barrier to entry, and why that changes everything about who has to worry.
What the Pandemic Actually Cost Us Jacobsen's argument that the most lasting damage of COVID was never counted in cases, and that we are still paying it.
The Pope's Quiet Backchannel A story she learned at the Vatican about how the world once stepped back from the brink, and why almost no one was allowed to know.
Old Men in Their Nineties What decades of interviewing soldiers near the end of their lives taught her about how a human being changes.
Solution, Solution, Solution Her answer to the reader who finishes the book, decides the worst case is inevitable, and gives up.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Annie Jacobsen
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
3 August 2026, 10:00 am - 1 hour 7 minutes272: Unabridged Interview: Malcolm Guite
This is our unabridged interview with Malcolm Guite.
A frightened knight, cornered in a castle he doesn't understand, grabs a spear he was warned not to touch and drives it into the king. And because the king and the land are one, the whole country goes barren. The rivers empty, the crops fail, nothing can be born. It's called the Dolorous Stroke, and poet Malcolm Guite first heard it at eight years old from his mother. When he protested that the knight didn't know what he was doing, that no world could work this way, his mother answered him: “I'm telling you this story because you need to know that you live in just such a world.”
But there's a second half. The same spear that wounded the king is the only thing that can heal him.
Guite is a poet, Anglican priest, life fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and the frontman of a rhythm-and-blues band. His latest work is Merlin's Isle: An Arthuriad, a four-volume epic retelling of the Arthurian legends in ballad form, beginning with Galahad and the Grail. He's convinced these old stories are older and wiser than we are, that they know something we've spent a few centuries forgetting.
Key Ideas
The Dolorous Stroke One rash act, one seized spear, and a whole land laid waste. The medieval image Guite thinks describes exactly where we are now.
The Spear That Wounds Also Heals The strange logic at the heart of the Grail story, and why the cure has to come through the very thing that caused the wound.
You Live in Just Such a World What Guite's mother told an eight-year-old about a world that can be undone by one frightened person, in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Boy Who Read the Poem At sixteen, homesick and depressed, Guite reads Keats and walks out certain something had happened that brain chemistry could never fully explain.
The Immense Relief of Being a Creature What happens when you stop having to be the be-all and end-all of everything, and why that turns out to be freedom rather than loss.
Vulnerable Means Woundable The Latin root that reframes depression, love, and the whole shape of a good life. Love doesn't tower over. It comes down on the level with you.
The Wasteland We're In Now How a barren medieval kingdom became, for Guite, a picture of disenchantment, ecological ruin, and a culture that's lost the thread of its own story.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Malcolm Guite
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
31 July 2026, 10:00 am - 42 minutes 56 secondsThe Subtext: Deconstructing Christianity
What happens when a retired theology professor walks into a party full of deconstructing twenty-somethings? It sounds like the start of a joke. But really. How do we show up for ourselves and the people we love when doubt and deconstruction enter the chat?
This week on The Subtext, Lee and Savannah discuss one of the more defining conversations of modern faith: deconstruction. Whether you're asking big questions yourself or walking alongside someone who is, this episode is an invitation to keep showing up with curiosity, compassion, and hope.
Things we mentioned in this episode:
Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta
40% OFF SCANDALOUS WITNESS: Use code WITNESS40. Code is good for 40% off the paperback of Scandalous Witness. Only valid when ordering on Eerdmans.com, only valid for USA shipping addresses. Code is good until end of 2026.
Follow The Subtext: Instagram | Threads | X | YouTube | TikTok
Follow Lee: Instagram | Twitter | Lee's Newsletter
Follow Savannah: Instagram | Substack
Join our Email List: nosmallendeavor.com
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29 July 2026, 9:00 am - 51 minutes 13 seconds272: Malcolm Guite: A Wounded King, a Barren Land, and the Spear That Heals
A frightened knight, cornered in a castle he doesn't understand, grabs a spear he was warned not to touch and drives it into the king. And because the king and the land are one, the whole country goes barren. The rivers empty, the crops fail, nothing can be born. It's called the Dolorous Stroke, and poet Malcolm Guite first heard it at eight years old from his mother. When he protested that the knight didn't know what he was doing, that no world could work this way, his mother answered him: “I'm telling you this story because you need to know that you live in just such a world.”
But there's a second half. The same spear that wounded the king is the only thing that can heal him.
Guite is a poet, Anglican priest, life fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and the frontman of a rhythm-and-blues band. His latest work is Merlin's Isle: An Arthuriad, a four-volume epic retelling of the Arthurian legends in ballad form, beginning with Galahad and the Grail. He's convinced these old stories are older and wiser than we are, that they know something we've spent a few centuries forgetting.
Key Ideas
The Dolorous Stroke One rash act, one seized spear, and a whole land laid waste. The medieval image Guite thinks describes exactly where we are now.
The Spear That Wounds Also Heals The strange logic at the heart of the Grail story, and why the cure has to come through the very thing that caused the wound.
You Live in Just Such a World What Guite's mother told an eight-year-old about a world that can be undone by one frightened person, in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Boy Who Read the Poem At sixteen, homesick and depressed, Guite reads Keats and walks out certain something had happened that brain chemistry could never fully explain.
The Immense Relief of Being a Creature What happens when you stop having to be the be-all and end-all of everything, and why that turns out to be freedom rather than loss.
Vulnerable Means Woundable The Latin root that reframes depression, love, and the whole shape of a good life. Love doesn't tower over. It comes down on the level with you.
The Wasteland We're In Now How a barren medieval kingdom became, for Guite, a picture of disenchantment, ecological ruin, and a culture that's lost the thread of its own story.
Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript for abridged episode with Malcolm Guite
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Wonder Project: Subscriber support makes more great content like I Gotta Ask with Annie F. Downs possible. The Wonder Project subscription on Prime Video is available in the U.S. for $8.99/month or $89.99/year after a 7-day free trial. Visit IGottaAsk.com to learn more!
Join NSE+ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable.
No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow @nosmallendeavor
Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow @leeccamp
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
27 July 2026, 10:00 am - More Episodes? Get the App